NARUTO POV:
"BLACK HURRICANE!"
Naruto blasted through the huge ice tiger in a storm of black energy, undeterred by the cheap copy of his friend's Kekkei Genkai.
'It's clear that these guys are able to only control ice, but not make it. All you have to do is make this guy lose his focus on his surroundings and he won't be able to do anything.'
'Stop right now!'
He was forced to stop mid-air as a spike suddenly appeared where he would have been.
Black wing flapping behind him, Naruto held Kubikiribocho at an angle before blasting forward, using the newly created spike as a jumping pad for his next move.
"BLACK METEORITE!"
In a blast of void chakra he slammed into the man with the flat side of his greatsword before flicking it, throwing him through the huge glacier.
He heard yells below, and glanced down to see Sakura switch with Haku to help out Yukie, who was clutching her head.
'What a pain'
'Just leave her here kid.'
'She's literally my mission Kurama.'
"HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!"
He turned around to see the man jumping out of the hole he had made when he hit the glacier and on top of the cliff.
"HOW CAN YOU HIT ME THROUGH MY CHAKRA ARMOUR!?"
Naruto scratched the back of his head in confusion.
"Huh?"
"That armour of theirs is somehow able to nullify or atleast block chakra. Didn't you notice the fat one shrug of Pinky's water dragon earlier? It's nowhere near the level of what you two freaks can do, but it must be giving him an existential crisis."
'I resent being called a freak dattebayo.'
'You literally have a wing on your back right now Naruto.'
'yeah, YOURS.'
'Doesn't help. Ooh, what is he doing now?'
"ITSUKAKU HAKUGEI!" (One horned whale)
A huge narwhal erupted from the sea, and slammed straight into the surprised Naruto.
Naruto let out a grunt of pain as he was slammed back and had to release a Kuroana(black hole) into the thing's face to blast it's top half off and catch his breath.
"You throw another ice whale at me" he said between pants "And I'll lose my shit."
Clearly the guy took it as a challenge (which to be fair, it sort of was.) and made the same hand seals again.
"I don't know how you tore through the previous one, but this one will be MUCH stronger."
'Naruto…' Liebe warned
'I got it.' He told his companion as he focused a large amount of void chakra through his sword.
"KUSHOTON: MUGEN GIRI!" (VOID STYLE: INFINITE SLASH)
With a swing, he released an arc of power so wide you could put the whale next to it twice, and still have space leftover.
It cut through the cliff, before cutting through the Horned whale in half before it even had a chance to do anything and going off into the horizon, staying on its path before disappearing from their line of sight.
In those few minutes, both Nadare and Naruto had returned to their teams, one in victory and one with a grievous wound.
SAKURA POV:
"You idiot" Sakura sighed with her face in her hands "What was the need to destroy the whole landscape?"
"Hey, he started it" Naruto defended himself "It'd be bad sportsmanship if I just let that go dattebayo!"
"That's not important right now." Sasuke said firmly "Haku's going to be with her until she wakes up. We need to come to a decision by then."
"Which is?" Naruto asked, back bending on top of his chair so he could make eye contact with Sasuke upside down.
"Whether we continue this mission, and the adjustments needed if we do."
The three were stuck in a deadlock for a full minute, and neither Sandayu nor the Director could bring themselves to say anything.
With a groan Sasuke got up, and left the room with these parting words : "Fine, but you guys are doing the grilling. I need some fresh air. To escape your stupidity"
While Sakura and Naruto gave each other victorious grins, Sandayu said what everyone except the Ninjas had been thinking.
"Excuse me but, what just happened?"
"We discussed whether we continue the mission or not." Sakura said plainly "We decided to continue."
"Just like that?"
"Think of it like voting" Naruto suggested "I never wanted to quit, and Sakura just made it clear that she wants to continue. Even if Haku voted the opposite, it'd just be equal votes on both sides so we'd have an annoying discussion or something. Sasuke hates doing unnecessary things, so he just gave in."
"And what was that about 'grilling' at the end?" the director questioned.
"That…" Sakura began before suddenly standing up and walking straight in front of Sandayu "Was related to about how Sandayu-san clearly knew something about all of this."
"Yeah" Naruto said as he stood up too, dead serious "And we'd really like to be told the whole story now."
HAKU POV:
"She's awake" Haku announced as she walked into the room to see Sandayu crying, Sakura scowling and Naruto staring grimly at the table "What happened here?"
"Sad backstory" Naruto said as he got up and picked up two fake swords they had been using as props "I'm gonna brief Sasuke, and blow off some steam. You two have fun figuring out a plan."
She looked at his back as he called out to Sasuke before throwing out one of the fake swords at him and getting in a stance.
"Care to explain?"
Sakura sighed before nodding "Her dad was the Daimyo, but was betrayed by his brother Dotou. Dotou killed a bunch of people including her dad to become the new daimyo, and I'm assuming someone helped her escape and she took on the name of Fujikaze Yukie."
"Where does Sandayu-san come into this?" Haku asked, looking back and forth between her teammate and their client.
"I used to serve at the side of the late Daimyo-sama. I must confess, I had thought that the princess was dead until I found her on stage. I was overjoyed…at how she manage to survive…" he managed to get out between choked sobs.
"It would have been better if I died."
The room turned to see Koyuki standing at the door with a dull expression, and only Haku noticed Sakura mumble something not very pleasant under her breath.
"Please don't say that." Sandayu pleaded "You being alive is out hope!"
"Even if I am alive, my heart is already dead. Ever since that incident, my tears have all dried up."
Sakura snorted, and it wasn't subtle.
Koyuki turned and glared at her sharply "you have something to say?"
"Yeah" Sakura said, matching her glare "You're full of crap."
Both Sandayu and Koyuki's eyes widened, and the actress walked forward angrily "How dare you say that!?"
Sakura stood up as well, and marched up to Koyuki.
"It sure didn't look like your tears were all dried up when you had that little panic attack back there" Sakura said, gaze unflinching "I understand being hurt, and obviously your father's death would affect you. But this little 'unfeeling woman' act you have going on here is only going to get you and those around you in a world of pain. And since my team is around you right now, I'm not going to let that happen."
"What would you know of pain" Koyuki said venomously "what would you know of losing everything!"
"I don't need to!" Sakura was almost shouting now "but I spend almost every day with one who did, and one who never had anything to lose! And I can't even imagine them ever being a setback as big as you are right now! We're saving this country, and I don't care if you rule it after or not. Either way, you stay out of our way!"
With that, Sakura stormed out of the room to join her teammates in their spar.
NARUTO POV:
"This is seriously getting old now dattebayo." Naruto sighed as he carried the (once again) runaway actress on his back "Why even try to outrun actual ninja if you're gonna end up falling and sleeping at a random snowy place?"
"I didn't plan it" she muttered from his back "You should just go back. I'm only going to act in front of the camera."
"Yeah whatever" Naruto dismissed " I'd never force you to do something that big anyway, neither would my teammates. We're saving the country, and then I get to eat ramen at home dattebayo."
"You say that so easily."
"We've done it before" Naruto said "You've seen that big sword I have right? I got it after a mission where we ended up saving Wave country. This is bound to be easier, since if those guys are even close to being the strongest enemies we'll face, winning is just a-whoa."
Koyuki looked over his shoulder to see why Naruto had stopped, and paled when she realized.
"Those were frozen till now right?"
"T-train" she whispered
"The hell's a train?"
The giant metal whistling thing answered his question.
"Hold on!" he warned before running towards the ending of the tunnel fast enough to maintain distance between himself and the train.
"How are you this fast!?" Koyuki asked while shielding her face from the sudden wind buffeting her body as they managed to get out of the tunnel and hide behind a rock.
"Like I said" Naruto said between pants "I have super awesome ninja skills."
"It's been a while, Koyuki."
Naruto gestured her to stay hidden, before peeking out to see that the train had stopped and a guy with long brown hair and fancy clothes was speaking into a microphone.
"Come out now, let me see your face."
Before Naruto could let out a witty remark, everyone turned to the side to see logs sliding down the snowy hill and crash into the train.
"Everyone! Our Princess Koyuki is watching! Victory will be ours!"
Naruto cursed under his breath when he saw that a bunch of people with old-type armour were standing at the top of the hill. He straight up swore when he saw them charge downhill as the train's compartments slid to reveal weird metal squares.
"EVERYONE GO BACK!" Naruto yelled as he jumped out of the hiding spot, wind chakra already rolling off his hands in waves as he directed it straight at Dotou, who had just given some sort of order.
He was too late though, and while the attack hit the target and caused the Daimyo to be slammed on the ground hard enough for his head to bleed, the attack had begun. A rain of kunai so fast, and in such a quantity that it looked like waves of metal walls was unleashed on the rebels.
"HIKEN!/Hyoton:Kori no Kabe/DOTON: DOSHAKUZURE!" (FIRE FIST!/Ice style: ice wall/ EARTH STYLE: EARTH SLIDE!)"
One second the rebels were charging to certain death, the next there was a giant wall of ice in front of them, the first wave of kunai had been completely thrown of trajectory by a huge blast of fire, and the enemies had been forced to defend themselves from a rockslide from the other direction.
Naruto let out a sigh of relief as Sasuke, Haku and Sakura landed beside him.
BOOM!
Naruto turned quickly to see parts of the train and the tip of the ice hill explode.
"Let's get out of here" Sasuke said as he did another 'Kai!' and the exit of the tunnel the train was trying to escape through exploded as well, burying all but the first two compartments in snow.
When Naruto made to go after the detached part, Sakura grabbed his shoulder.
"We need to regroup, and make sure no one-what's that sound?"
The whole group turned to look towards the cliff to see a huge metal balloon thing with fins at the bottom fly up beside them, and the big guy who Sakura and Haku had fought earlier reach out with a metallic glove, and the arm actually move.
"wha-HEY!"
In an instant, Koyuki was snatched and dragged to the air balloon, and the pink haired lady with the wings flew above them, dropping kunai with weird blue stuff that caused ice spikes.
"Everyone get near me!" Sasuke warned before making the hand signs.
"Katon: Pinukan no ryoiki" (fire style: fire god's domain)
When the dome of fire disappeared, the group turned to see the big balloon floating away from them.
And Naruto hanging off its end using his retractor.